Note: Much of the information in this blog post comes from Google’s online Digital Marketing and E-commerce course on Coursera.
Introduction
E-commerce is the buying and selling of goods or services using the internet. In other words, e-commerce involves a store that sells its products online. E-commerce is sometimes referred to by the abbreviation E-com. E-commerce or E-com will be used interchangeably in this article. E-commerce allows businesses or companies to list products or services on their website and receive customer payments online.
There are four types of products that e-commerce businesses sell:
- Physical goods
- Digital goods (like video streaming services like HBO Max or Amazon Prime)
- Services
- Software (like Adobe Photoshop)
Customers tend to research products online before making a purchase. If customers don’t buy a product online, they could use an e-commerce site to research it before buying it in a brick-and-mortar store.
There are two types of e-commerce businesses:
- Online-only
- Click-and-mortar(also called Online and brick and mortar store)
Features of an E-commerce store
- Home Page – This is the main page of a website. The home page should help customers understand which products it sells online. The home page is the main hub connecting to other website pages.
- Navigation Bar – This is a collection of links to other pages within a website. The navigation bar helps customers find the website section that would be most useful to them. The navigation bar typically stays at the top of the website, no matter which page a customer is on. The navigation bar might include links to featured deals, weekly ads, gift registries, or customer support.
- Product detail page – These pages provide information about a specific product. These pages may include images, specifications, and reviews.
- Shopping Cart – This virtual shopping cart is where products are placed virtually before checkout.
- Customer support, contact us, returns & exchanges, and shipping information
- Help and support pages – These are often included in the website’s footer.
In addition to these features, an e-commerce website should be responsive. A responsive website is designed to work on all types of devices, including computers, mobile phones, and tablets. An e-commerce store’s website should also be accessible. A website being accessible means that it’s designed and developed so people with disabilities can use it. This can include making font sizes bigger or using video captions. Accessibility is the purpose behind the alt text for images. An image’s alt text allows screen readers to describe an image to those with visual impairments. This is important since most people with disabilities will leave a website immediately if it’s not accessible.
Common E-commerce platforms
E-commerce platforms are an example of software. There are two types of software(at least as far as this blog post is concerned):
- Software-as-a-service(Saas) – This is web-based software available on a subscription basis. Not to be confused with Sass(Stylishly awesome style sheets), which is great for styling websites. Sass programs are significantly more user-friendly, have built-in templates, and don’t require separate web hosting.
- Open-source– This is software that gives access to all the program’s code. This gives a company complete control over the design and functionality of its e-commerce store and offers endless customization options. Coding and technical skills are needed to utilize open-source software properly. Open-source software also requires separate web hosting.
Common e-commerce platforms are:
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